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IRRADIATIONS.    SAND  AND  SPRAY.    JOHN  GOULD 
FLETCHER. 

SOME  IMAGIST  POETS. 

JAPANESE    LYRICS.      Translated    by    LAFCADIO 
HEARN. 

AFTERNOONS  OF  APRI  L.    GRACE  HAZARD  CONK- 
LING. 

THE  CLOISTER:  A  VERSE  DRAMA.     EMILE  VBR- 

HABRBN. 

INTERFLOW.    GEOFFREY  C.  FABBR. 

STILLWATER  PASTORALS  AND  OTHER  POEMS, 
PAUL  SHIVELL. 

IDOLS,    WALTER  CONRAD  ARENSBERG. 

TURNS    AND    MOVIES,    AND   OTHER  TALES    IN 
VERSE.    CONRAD  AIKEN. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


IDOLS 


IDOLS 


BY 


WALTER    CONRAD    ARENSBERG 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

$&$$  Cambribge 
1916 


COPYRIGHT,    1916,   BY  WALTER  CONRAD   ARENSBERG 


ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Published  March 


FOR  LOU 


3435 1 0 


CONTENTS 

CLOUDS 

FOR  FORMS  THAT  ARE  FREE  II 

VOYAGE  A  L'INFINI  12 

DIRGE  14 

THE  VOICE  OF  ONE  DEAD  15 

JUNE  l6 

TO  THE  GATHERER  IJ 

AT  DAYBREAK  l8 

AUTOBIOGRAPHIC  IQ 

STATUES 

THE  NIGHT  OF  ARIADNE  25 

HUMAN  26 

THE  DIVINE- COMEDY  2J 

AU  QUATRIEME:  RUE  DES  ECOLES  28 

LANDSCAPE  AND  FIGURES  2Q 

DIALOGUE  3O 

TO  A  DESERTED  TEMPLE  AT  P^STUM  3! 

CRYSTALS 

PORTRAIT  35 

JOHN  DAVIDSON  36 

[7] 


TO  HASEKAWA  37 

SONG  OF  THE  SOULS  SET  FREE  38 

AN  OLD  GAME  39 

AFTER-THOUGHT  40 

FALLING  ASLEEP  4! 

CONSIDER  THE  LILIES  42 

TO  A  POET  43 

TO  A  GARDEN  IN  APRIL  44 
THE  INNER  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE  STATUES  SEAT 
ED  OUTSIDE  THE  BOSTON  PUBLIC  LIBRARY  45 

A  DYING  SERVANT  46 

FOR  THE  SAKE  OF  PEACE 

TO  THE  NECROPHILE  51 

AM  TAG  52 

INFINITE  MERCY  53 

TO  LOUVAIN  54 

THE  WAR  LORD  55 
INSTRUCTIONS  FOR  THE   SUBMARINE  THAT  SANK 

THE  LUSITANIA  56 

TO  BELGIUM  57 

NEUTRALITY  58 

TRANSLATIONS 

THE  AFTERNOON  OF  A  FAUN  6l 

FIFTH  CANTO  OF  THE  INFERNO  69 


CLOUDS 


IDOLS 

CLOUDS 

FOR   FORMS   THAT   ARE   FREE 

LOOSEN  the  web,  Arachne,  and  we  will  waltz, 

Loosen,  Arachne,  • 

The  spider-web  that  has  ensnared 

The  feet  in  such  a  struggling  bergamask. 


VOYAGE    A    L'INFINI 

THE  swan  existing 

Is  like  a  song  with  an  accompaniment 

Imaginary. 

Across  the  glassy  lake, 

Across  the  lake  to  the  shadow  of  the  willows, 

It  is  accompanied  by  an  image, 

—  As  by  Debussy's 

"  Reflets  dans  feau." 

The  swan  that  is 

Reflects 

Upon  the  solitary  water  —  breast  to  breast 

With  the  duplicity: 

"  The  other  one  !  " 


And  breast  to  breast  it  is  confused. 

O  visionary  wedding !    O  stateliness  of  the  procession ! 

It  is  accompanied  by  the  image  of  itself 

Alone. 

At  night 

The  lake  is  a  wide  silence, 

Without  imagination. 


DIRGE 

MAKE  of  the  moon  a  motion, 

You 

Who  are  laid  to  rest, 

Make  of  the  moon  about  the  eaves  of  space, 

You  who  upon  the  earth 

Are  doing  nothing, 

The  circles  of  the  swallow 

In  the  twilight, 

You  who  have  left  above  the  empty  house 

The  night 

In  suspense. 


THE  VOICE   OF  ONE   DEAD 

OF  the  relented  limbs  and  the  braid,  O  lady, 
Bound  up  in  haste  at  parting, 
The  secret  is  kept. 


JUNE 

THESE  breaking  buds, 

These  buds  in  a  nest  of  leaves  .  .  . 

What  wings  have  covered  them, 

And  the  warmth  of  what  brooding  mother, 

That  the  roses, 

The  roses  themselves, 

Come  out  ? 

The  roses  are  trying  their  petals  .   .   . 
Fly  away,  roses,  after  the  wind. 


TO   THE   GATHERER 

HEAVY  with  the  life  among  the  leaves 

The  bough 

Is  heavy  with  your  hands  .   .  . 

It  yields. 

And  will  the  yielding  bough  at  the  last 

Break  ? 

Or  at  the  last  made  light 

By  hands  that  gather  and  cannot  hold, 

Will  it  swing  away  as  it  used  to  swing, 

Out  of  the  reach  of  hands, 

High  with  one  apple  ? 


AT  DAYBREAK 

I  HAD  a  dream  and  I  awoke  with  it, 
Poor  little  thing  that  I  had  not  unclasped 
After  the  kiss  good-bye. 

And  at  the  surface  how  it  gasped, 

This  thing  that  I  had  loved  in  the  unlit 

Depth  of  the  drowsy  sea  ... 

Ah  me, 

This  thing  with  which  I  drifted  toward  the  sky. 

Driftwood  upon  a  wave, 
Senseless  the  motion  that  it  gave. 


[18] 


AUTOBIOGRAPHIC 

PERMANENTLY  in  a  space  that  is  anywhere  here 
While  I  am  I, 
I  am  temporarily 
Always  now. 

And  at  the  eternal 

Instant 

I  look  — 

The  eye-glassed  I 

At  the  not  I,  the  opaque 

Others, 

Eye-glassed  too. 

And  I  who  see  of  them 

Only  the  glasses 

Looking, 

See  of  myself 

In  looking-glasses 

Faces 

Distorted. 


And  throughout  the  transparent 
Spaciousness, 
Which  is  so  extensively 
The  present 
Point 

Located  personally  — 
A  solid  geometry 
Of  vacancy 

Bounded  by  the  infinite 
Absence, 
I 

Foreshorten 
To  the  end 
Of  me  ... 
Walls  and  ceilings 
Of  my  cellular 
Isolation 

Wrecked  by  perspective, 
Habitable  cubes 
Of  static 

Surfaces  of  plaster 
Prolonged  in  flight. 
And  it  is  I  who  hold  them  back, 
And  it  is  I  who  let  them  go, 
These  gray  planes  plunging 
C  ^o] 


In  an  emptiness 

Blue, 

These  rampant  sides  of  pyramids 

That  converge 

To  nothing 


While  I  am  I. 


STATUES 


THE  NIGHT  OF  ARIADNE 

SHE  waited  in  a  grotto  by  the  sea 
The  vital  visit  of  the  Minotaur 
Untouched.  The  night  had  grown  oracular 
With  tongues  of  licking  heat  that  were  not  he, 
She  knew  not  how  she  knew,  reluctantly. 
The  entrance  of  the  grotto  was  a  scar 
Of  heaven,  and  in  it  lengthened,  star  by  star, 
Stalactites  to  her  credulous  chastity. 

Heavy  the  darkness  that  she  lay  beneath ; 

The  tide  was  swelling ;  and  a  rosy  wreath 

She  vowed  to  an  old  pagan  monolith, 

Her  god,  if  it  would  send  against  the  myth 

A  man.   .   .  .  And  in  a  dream  she  seemed  to  sheath 

The  dripping  blade  that  he  would  enter  with. 


HUMAN 

IN  a  cathedral  that  aspires  in  thought 

I  am  .  .  .  and  I  perhaps  am  not  alone ! 

I  am  an  altar  to  a  God  unknown, 

And  with  the  candles  I  am  clear  and  hot. 

And  if  He  cannot  be  it  matters  not ; 

A  reaper  of  the  whirlwind  who  have  sown, 

I  think  a  God  and  so  I  am  my  own ; 

And  toward  myself  so  long  in  me  forgot 

I  take  the  ancient  attitude  of  prayer, 
Yes,  even  as  by  the  crib,  beneath  the  flame 
Of  the  familiar  face  .  ..   .  Or  was  it  where 
I  thought  of  one  too  strange  who  never  came, 
And  closed  my  empty  arms  about  the  air, 
Feeling  the  nakedness  of  her  first  name. 


[26] 


THE  DIVINE   COMEDY 

AND  if  it  was  a  dream  it  was  enough  — 
It  lasted  like  a  world,  it  kept  awake 
The  ghost  of  Beatrice  ;  and  to  that  break 
Of  day  which  brake  at  last  the  dreamy  stuff, 
Breaking  to  death  the  forest  wild  and  rough, 
It  lit  the  night,  and  by  the  troubled  lake 
It  spake  as  with  her  voice  that  never  spake : 
"  O  peace,  be  still!  "  to  all  the  winds  thereof. 

The  comedy  of  Dante  Alighieri  ! 

For  dreams  he  left  his  birthright  of  despair, 

The  lives  that  stiffened  into  statuary 

In  the  cathedral  of  his  proud  poor  prayer. 

For  him  the  bride  beside  the  mother  Mary 

Let  down  the  heavenly  ladders  of  her  hair. 


AU   QUATRlfcME:   RUE   DES    fiCOLES 

I  HAVE  a  memory  of  a  lonely  room  .   .  . 
The  walls  of  it  were  as  a  garden  wall. 

0  gardens  of  the  world,  O  lost  perfume ! 
Outside  the  world  I  read  the  Fleurs  du  Mai. 
Ah  me,  I  seemed  to  understand  it  all, 

Till  in  the  door  I  saw  I  know  not  whom. 

She  said:  "  What  are  the  flowers  that  you  let  fall?' 

She  seemed  to  say :  "  It 's  I,  it 's  I  who  bloom." 

Was  I  at  last  afraid  to  be  alone  ? 

"  Who  are  you,  woman  whom  I  have  not  known  ? " 

1  asked,  and  as  she  gazed:  "Are  you  a  child?" 
Gravely  she  gave  her  lips  and  she  was  gone  .   .   . 
Gone  with  her  wistful  answer  which  she  smiled : 
"  I  am  the  deepest  valley  to  the  dawn." 


[28] 


LANDSCAPE   AND   FIGURES 

THE  twilight  is  returning  —  come  away ! 
It  gropes  among  the  trees,  it  is  confused 
About  the  golden  bodies  that  we  used 
In  earnest  and  a  little  while  in  play. 
The  twilight  that  has  yielded  up  its  day 
Clings  to  us  now  like  some  poor  thing  seduced 
Who  on  the  hilly  bosoms  has  unloosed 
The  long  disheveled  sunlight  growing  gray. 

Hide  from  the  haggard  touches  of  the  sun 
Your  yielding  body,  that  it  may  be  one 
With  all  the  dark ;  and  for  the  breathless  bed 
Gather  the  quiet  that  the  Lyra  shed, 
When  for  the  tryst  supreme  that  no  one  knows 
The  night  had  the  consent  of  a  pale  rose. 


[  29] 


DIALOGUE 

BE  patient,  Life,  when  Love  is  at  the  gate, 
And  when  he  enters  let  him  be  at  home. 
Think  of  the  roads  that  he  has  had  to  roam. 
Think  of  the  years  that  he  has  had  to  wait. 

But  if  I  let  Love  in  I  shall  be  late. 
Another  has  come  first  —  there  is  no  room. 
And  I  am  thoughtful  of  the  endless  loom  — 
Let  Love  he  patient,  the  importunate. 

O  Life,  be  idle  and  let  Love  come  in, 

And  give  thy  dr.eamy  hair  that  Love  may  spin. 

But  Love  himself  is  idle  with  his  song. 

Let  Love  come  last,  and  then  may  Love  last  long. 

Be  patient,  Life,  for  Love  is  not  the  last. 

Be  patient  now  with  Death,  for  Love  has  passed, 


[30] 


TO   A   DESERTED   TEMPLE   AT   P^STUM 

Is  it  a  hushed  good  morrow  to  the  sea 

Or  a  good  night,  if  night  shall  be  for  good, 

That  thou  art  holding  in  thine  attitude, 

O  faithful  Grecian  fane  in  Italy  ? 

Wrecked  is  the  god  who  went  away  from  thee ; 

Thou  takest  the  shadows  for  thy  widowhood; 

Thou  hast  not  fallen  when  the  winds  have  wooed; 

Thou  art  the  patience  of  Penelope. 

So  dost  thou  hold  the  attitude  of  Greece 
Toward  one  who  wanders  now  the  wood  obscure. 
Yea,  though  the  moss  be  thine  entablature, 
The  stars  at  last  thine  only  mysteries, 
Amid  the  winds  that  will  not  let  thee  be 
Thou  art  a  gesture  of  eternity. 


CRYSTALS 


PORTRAIT 

SHE  has  a  gas-lit  glitter  of  cold  stones, 
She  lives,  and  she  makes  light  of  lingerie; 
And  she  has  suffered  not  the  little  ones 
To  come  to  her,  suffering  you  and  me. 

The  flesh  is  pretty  about  the  gentle  bones, 
And  these  at  least  —  you  feel !  —  have  modesty, 

These  of  her  naked  life  the  last  Unknowns 

* 

That  she 's  afraid  as  death  to  let  you  see. 


[35] 


JOHN   DAVIDSON 

O  NOT  for  him  the  shore  crepuscular, 
The  waning  house,  the  slow  obscurity ; 
For  him  the  sudden  setting  of  a  star  .   .   . 
He  has  gone  out  like  light  upon  the  sea. 

His  are  the  rights  of  memory  in  all  lands ; 

A  lord  of  life  too  haughty  for  a  crown 

Laid  on  with  hands  of  God,  with  his  own  hands 

He  laid  it  on  his  head  and  laid  it  down. 


[36] 


TO   HASEKAWA 


PERHAPS  it  is  no  matter  that  you  died ; 
Life  's  an  incognito  which  you  saw  through. 
You  never  told  on  life — you  had  your  pride  ; 
But  life  has  told  on  you. 


[37] 


SONG   OF   THE   SOULS   SET   FREE 

WRAP  the  earth  in  cloudy  weather 

For  a  shroud. 

We  have  slipped  the  earthly  tether, 

We  're  above  the  cloud. 

Peep  and  draw  the  cloud  together, 

Peep  upon  the  bowed. 

What  can  they  be  bowing  under, 

Wild  and  wan  ? 

Peep,  and  draw  the  cloud  asunder, 

Peep,  and  wave  a  dawn. 

It  will  make  them  rise  and  wonder 

Whether  we  are  gone. 


[38] 


AN   OLD   GAME 

Is  it  heavenly  hide  and  seek, 
Playmate,  that  you  have  to  play  ? 
When  I  closed  my  eyes  to  pray 
You  were  breathless  where  you  lay 
On  the  bed,  and  you  were  weak. 
When  I  opened  them  at  length 
It  was  you  who  had  the  strength, 
You  the  earthly  runaway. 

Is  it  Seek  and  ye  shall  find 

On  the  way  that  you  have  run, 

Playmate,  past  the  setting  sun? 

Or  does  pale  Oblivion 

Say  her  gentle  Never  mind? 

Through  the  emptiness  of  sky 

If  I  call  no  glad  /  spy, 

Will  you  care,  O  hidden  one  ? 


[39] 


AFTER-THOUGHT 

O  WHAT  can  I  be  breathing  for, 
Wasting  the  world  by  being  sad? 
O  for  a  breath  of  life !   Once  more 
My  life  is  willing  to  be  glad. 

Even  her  grave  is  growing  glad 
With  grass  and  with  the  flowering  suns ; 
Nor  in  the  grave  can  she  be  sad 
To  miss  the  waking  clarions. 

She  '11  not  be  sad  if  I  forget  — 

Hers  is  the  way  of  being  glad. 

Of  her  I  need  not  think.  And  yet  .  .  . 

It  is  not  I,  the  world  is  sad. 


[40] 


FALLING  ASLEEP 

O  THE  dream  that  dandles 
Sleepy  Head ! 

Lay  aside  your  sandals 
*That  have  fled 
Down  a  night  of  candles 
By  the  bed. 

O  the  changing  pillow 
That  is  bare! 

Be  a  weeping  willow 

With  your  hair 

Long  .  .   .  And  on  your  billow 

Lift  me  .  .  .  where  ? 


CONSIDER  THE  LILIES 

LILIES  are  the  beckonings 
Of  a  world  of  lilies  fallen, 
Yielding  to  alighted  wings 
Secret  pollen. 

Yesterdays  are  ghostly  sheaves, 
Noon  is  golden  on  the  bough. 
Life  is  ripe  among  the  leaves  . 
Beckon  thou. 

Wave  a  handkerchief  of  prayer, 
Keep  a  secret  in  a  gown. 
When  the  wings  are  in  the  air, 
Bow  down. 


[42  ] 


TO  A  POET 


WHAT  are  you  doing  like  a  naughty  child 

To  the  original  NON-ENTITY, 

Without  a  wedding  and  a  little  wild, 

Those  moments  when  you  say  of  beauty  :  "  BE  "  ? 


[43] 


TO  A  GARDEN  IN  APRIL 


ALAS,  and  are  you  pleading  now  for  pardon  ? 
Spring  came  by  night  —  and  so  there  is  no  telling  ? 
Spring  had  his  way  with  you,  my  little  garden  .   .  . 
You  hide  in  leaf,  but  oh !  your  buds  are  swelling. 


[44] 


THE  INNER  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE  STATUES 
SEATED  OUTSIDE  THE  BOSTON  PUBLIC 
LIBRARY 

How  natural  the  way  that  they  have  greeted 
Each  other,  like  two  girls  excused  at  school : 
"  Sister  of  bronze  upon  the  granite  seated, 
Hast  thoM  an  easy  stool  ?  " 


[45] 


A   DYING   SERVANT 

AT  last  there  was  to  be  a  time  of  rest, 

Even  before  she  died,  the  very  best 

Time  that  at  last  was  to  be  all  her  own, 

When  she  should  not  be  holding  back  a  groan 

Just  for  the  sake  of  some  one  else,  and  when 

Among  the  ladies  and  the  gentlemen, 

At  last  being  out  of  pain,  she  should  not  run 

Back  to  the  duty  that  was  left  undone. 

She  was  left  to  herself.    The  old  alarm 

Clock  had  run  down  for  good,  and  the  lukewarm 

Hot  water  bottles  that  were  lying  where 

They  lay  all  day  no  longer  mattered — her 

Cold  feet  did  not  feel  cold  or  anything. 

But  there  was  something  of  the  evening 

Which  she  had  now  the  time  to  feel.   It  smiled 

Upon  her  idleness,  and  like  a  child 

She  said  a  "  Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep." 

Left  to  herself,  what  had  she  left  to  keep 

Of  her  spent  self  except  a  final  tryst 

For  dreams,  where  even  she  might  yet  be  kissed. 

[46] 


So  when  at  last  the  mistress  came  and  lay 
A  hand  upon  her  brow  to  ease  away 
The  difficult  life,  the  servant,  who  in  duty 
Without  complaint  had  found  her  only  beauty, 
Complained  about  that  hand  upon  her  brow : 
"Don't  bother  me  —  it  is  all  over  now." 


FOR   THE   SAKE    OF    PEACE 


TO   THE   NECROPHILE 

After  reading  of  the  affectionate  desire  of  Germany  "  to  get  closer  to 
France  "  as  expressed  by  the  German  Secretary  of  State  to  the  British 
Ambassador  at  Berlin. 

WITH  love  are  you  gone  mad,  O  lover  of  France, 

That  you  should  be  embracing  with  your  arms 

Her  gory  body  for  the  gore  that  warms 

Only  a  monster  in  his  dalliance  ? 

Alas !  she  is  alive  with  her  alarms, 

Unwilling  yet  for  the  enraged  romance. 

Assault  her  sacredness  of  Paris,  lance 

Her  flank  with  such  a  wound  as  has  its  charms 

For  you  who  want  for  your  obscene  amours 
The  body  of  a  soul  that  is  not  yours, 
For  you  who  want  a  wound  to  enter  by, 
For  you  who  want  a  corpse  upon  your  heart. 
Coupling  with  France  if  France  would  only  die, 
Not  yours  the  human  vow  :  "  TILL  DEATH  us  PART  !  " 


[Si'] 


AM  TAG! 

WILLIAM  of  Germany,  is  this  the  day 
For  which  you  have  been  drinking — or  a  night 
Which  is  awakened  by  the  dynamite 
Clearing  the  darkness  in  your  drunken  way  ? 
The  deeds  of  darkness  are  not  yours  —  you  light 
Louvains  about  the  beds  of  children.  Yea, 
And  in  the  churches  where  the  women  pray 
For  some  conception  of  the  divine  right, 

Them  you  enlighten,  too  —  the  right  divine 
Is  yours !    And  from  a  heaven  above  the  Rhine 
Your  visitation  !  And  immaculate 
Is  the  conception  as  the  women  wait, 
Beneath  the  dove-like  wings  of  aeroplanes, 
The  pleasure  that  you  feel  in  their  remains. 


[52] 


INFINITE   MERCY 


CAN  He  who  heard  the  plea  for  ignorance : 
"Forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do  !" 
Stooping  to  the  uplifted  cross  of  France, 
Forgive  the  Germans  —  they  who  know  and 
knew  ? 


[53] 


TO   LOUVAIN 


OLD  city  that  ascended  in  a  cloud, 
You  dropped  the  ashes  which  the  earth  is  proud 
To  wear  for  you  while  all  the  mouths  of  Krupp 
Are  mocking  still :  "  Go  up,  bald  head,  go  up!" 


[54] 


THE   WAR   LORD 

"  My  heart  bleeds  for  Louvain." 

WHOM  the  lord  loves  he  chastens.  And  he  bleeds 
That  you,  Louvain,  are  burning  in  his  hell. 
And  there  is  not  a  Christ  that  intercedes. 
The  lord  is  in  his  heaven.  All  is  well. 


[55] 


INSTRUCTIONS   FOR   THE   SUBMARINE   THAT 
SANK   THE   LUSITANIA 

RISE  to  an  infamy,  take  a  breath  and  dive, 
And  to  the  children  drowning  in  the  sea 
Prove  that  there  is  a  way  to  keep  alive 
Beneath  the  level  of  humanity. 


[56] 


TO   BELGIUM 


LIFEWARD  at  last,  some  day, 
When  no  one  shall  be  left  to  say  Alas, 
Children  shall  follow  along  the  trodden  way 
The  lure  of  the  reviving  grass. 


[57] 


NEUTRALITY 

NOT  by  a  dirge  or  a  pasan 
Breathe  of  the  wrongs  of  France ! 
Watch,  Laodicean, 
And  wait  upon  the  chance. 

The  game  is  for  the  great  — 
And  whose  the  sacrifice  ? 
Laodicean,  wait 
And  watch  the  loaded  dice ! 


TRANSLATIONS 


THE   AFTERNOON    OF   A    FAUN 
ECLOGUE  BY  MALLARME 


THE   FAUN1 
THOSE  nymphs,  I  would  perpetuate  them. 

Even  so  clear 

Their  coloring  light,  it  dances  in  the  atmosphere 
Heavy  with  leafy  sleeps. 

Was  it  a  dream  I  loved  ? 

My  doubt,  a  mass  of  night  primeval,  is  removed 
In  many  a  subtle  branch  which  proves,  being  still  these 

very 

Woods,  that,  alas,  I  gave  myself  all  solitary 
For  triumph  the  default  ideal  of  the  rose. 
Let  us  reflect 

if  women  of  whom  thou  thus  dost  gloze 
Image  a  longing  of  thy  senses  fanciful ! 
Faun,  the  illusion  is  escaping  from  the  cool 
Blue  eyes,  even  as  a  spring  in  tears,  of  the  more  chaste : 
The  other,  though,  all  sighs,  thou  sayest  is  to  contrast 
Even  as  a  daytime  zephyr  warm  upon  thy  fleece ! 
Not  so!  through  the  exhausted  swoon  and  motionless 

1  See  the  note  on  page  78. 

[63] 


Stifling  with  heats  the  morning  fresh  if  it  rebels, 
Murmurs  that  water  only  which  my  flute  expels 
On  the  grove  sprayed  with  notes;  and  the  one  breath 

of  air 

Out  of  the  two  pipes  prompt  in  its  exhaling  ere 
It  scatters  all  around  the  sound  in  a  dry  sprinkle, 
Is,  over  the  horizon  that  has  not  one  wrinkle, 
The  visible  and  tranquil  breath  illusory 
Of  inspiration,  which  once  more  attains  the  sky. 

O  ye  Sicilian  borders  of  a  quiet  swamp 

Which,  to  the  sun's  despite,  is  plundered  by  my  pomp, 

Tacit  beneath  the  flowers  of  sparkles,  CELEBRATE 

"How  I  cut  here  the  hollow  rushes  subjugate 

By  skill ;  when  on  the  glaucous  gold  of  verdurings 

Remote  which  dedicate  their  vine  unto  the  springs, 

Billows  a  whiteness  animal  in  the  repose : 

And  how  in  the  preluding  slow  where  the  pipe  grows , 

*T hat  flight  of  swans,  ah  no!  of  naiads  springs  away 

Or  dives  .  .  ." 

Inert,  all  is  afire  in  tawny  day, 
Not  showing  by  what  art  dashed  off  in  company 
Too  much  of  hymen  wished  by  one  who  strikes  the 
key: 

[64] 


Then  shall  I  waken  to  the  primal  zeal,  upright 
And  solitary  in  a  flood  antique  of  light, 
Lilies !  and  of  you  all  the  one  for  artlessness. 

Other  than  that  soft  nothing  which  their  lips  express, 
The  kiss,  which  keeps  the  faithless  safe  by  its  low 

sound, 

My  breast,  virgin  of  proof,  bears  witness  to  a  wound 
Mysterious,  occasioned  by  some  august  tooth; 
But  hush  !  there  needs  for  confidant  of  such  a  truth 
The  large  and  double  reed  performed  upon  by  day : 
Which,  as  it  sucks  the  trouble  of  the  cheek  away, 
Dreams,  in  a  long  extended  solo,  of  amusing 
The  beauty  of  the  neighbourhood  by  a  confusing 
False  of  that  beauty  and  our  song  infatuated ; 
And  that  as  high  as  love  itself  is  modulated 
It  may  make  vanish  from  the  common  dream  of  thighs 
Immaculate  or  backs  pursued  by  my  closed  eyes, 
A  loud  and  ineffectual  monotonous  line. 

Try  then  to  flower  again,  pipe  of  the  flights,  malign 
Syrinx,  upon  the  lakes  where  thou  for  me  must  wait ! 
I,  of  my  rumor  proud,  will  at  great  length  relate 
Of  goddesses,  and  by  idolatrous  imagery 
Remove  the  girdles  yet  from  their  obscurity : 

[65] 


Just  so,  when  from  the  grapes  I  have  sucked  out  the 

lustre, 

Laugher,  I  lift  to  summer  skies  the  empty  cluster 
To  banish  a  regret  by  trickery  dispersed, 
And  blowing  into  the  translucent  skins,  athirst 
For  drunkenness,  until  the  evening  I  look  through. 

0  nymphs,  let  us  inflate  some  MEMORIES  new. 

"  My  eye,  piercing  the  reeds,  transfixed  each  heavenly 
Neck,  which  beneath  the  river  drowns  its  ardency 
With  cries  of  anger  to  the  heaven  of  the  wood; 
And  the  resplendent  bath  of  tresses  is  bestrewed 
In  glitterings  and  quiverings,  O  diamonds! 

1  run;  when,  at  my  feet,  are  coupled  (with  their  wounds 
Of  languor  tasted  in  that  pang  of  being  twain) 

These  slumberers  in  just  their  arms  at  hazard  lain; 
Without  unclasping  them  I  lift  them,  and  invade 
This  shrubbery,  detested  by  the  frivolous  shade, 
Of  roses  spending  in  the  sun  all  fragrancy, 
Where  likewise  in  the  day  consumed  may  our  sport  be" 
Curse  of  the  virgins,  I  adore  thee,  O  delight 
Ferocious  of  the  naked  burdens  blest  that  fight 
To  shun  my  lip  afire  which,  as  a  flash  of  lightning 
Trembles,  is  drinking  from  the  flesh  the  secret  fright 
ening  : 

[66] 


From  the  unkind  one's  feet  to  bosoms  of  the  shy, 
Who  yields  at  once  an  innocence,  all  watery 
With  foolish  tears  or  with  less  doleful  vaporing. 
"  My  crime,  it  is  that  I,  glad  to  be  conquering 
Those  traitorous  fears ,  divided  the  disheveled  heap 
Of  kisses,  which  the  gods  would  well  commingled  keep; 
For  hardly  had  I  tried  to  hide  an  ardent  smile 
Under  the  creases  glad  of  one  (holding  the  while 
By  a  mere  finger,  so  that  thus  her  plumy  white 
Might  color  at  her  sister  s  passion  now  alight ', 
The  little  one  name  who  never  blushed  at  all:] 
When  from  my  arms,  undone  by  deaths  equivocal, 
That  prey  of  mine ,  forevermore  ingrate,  gets  free, 
Pitiless  of  the  sob  intoxicating  me" 

Well !  to  the  bliss  by  others  shall  I  yet  be  led 

With  their  hair  knotted  to  the  horns  upon  my 
head : 

Thou  knowest,  my  passion,  how,  all  purple  and  full 
grown, 

Each  pomegranate  bursts  and  with  the  bees  makes 
moan; 

And  blood  of  ours,  possessed  by  what  it  would  ac 
quire, 

Flows  for  the  whole  eternal  swarm  of  the  desire. 


Now  when  this  wood  with  gold  and  cinders  is  il 
lumed, 

A  festival  is  raised  among  the  leaves  consumed. 

Etna !  it  is  in  thee  by  Venus  visited 

With  her  ingenuous  heels  posed  on  thy  lava  bed, 

When  rumbles  a  sleep  unhappy  or  fades  away  the 
glow. 

I  hold  the  queen ! 

O  certain  castigation. 

No, 

But  empty  of  words  the  spirit  and  this  body  aswoon 
At  last  surrender  to  the  haughty  hush  of  noon : 
Sleep  now  in  the  oblivion  of  the  blasphemy, 
Stretched  on  the  thirsty  sand  and  as  I  love  to  be 
Mouth  open  to  the  potent  wine-star ! 

Couple,  adieu ; 
I  am  to  see  the  shadow  into  which  ye  grew. 


FIFTH    CANTO    OF   THE    INFERNO 


FIFTH  CANTO 

THUS  I  descended  from  the  primal  zone 

Down  to  the  second,  which  less  space  embraces, 

And  so  much  greater  pain  as  stings  to  moan. 

There  Minos  stands  and  horribly  grimaces ; 
Inspects  the  sins  about  the  entrancy, 
Judges,  and  as  he  girds  himself  he  places. 

I  say  that  when  the  soul  born  evilly 
Comes  in  his  presence,  it  confesses  all ; 
And  that  appraiser  ot  iniquity 

Discerns  for  it  the  hell  proportional ; 
He  girds  his  tail  as  many  times  about 
As  the  degrees  that  he  will  have  it  fall. 

Always  before  him  stands  a  mighty  rout ; 

They  go,  each  in  its  turn,  for  the  decree ; 

They  speak,  they  hear,  and  then  they  are  cast  out, 

"O  thou  who  nearest  the  dolorous  hostelry," 
To  me,  when  he  beheld  me,  Minos  cried, 
Quitting  the  act  of  that  great  ministry, 

[71 1 


"  Look  how  thou  enter,  and  in  whom  confide; 

Deceive  thee  not  the  wideness  of  the  gate." 

And  my  guide  answered  :  "  Why  dost  thou  too  chide  ? 

"  Do  not  impede  his  course  predestinate. 

Thus  is  it  willed  where  is  the  potency 

For  what  is  willed ;  and  make  no  more  debate." 

Straightway  begin  the  notes  of  misery 

To  make  themselves  be  heard ;  straightway  I  come 

Where  much  lamenting  makes  assault  on  me. 

I  reached  a  region  of  all  radiance  dumb, 

Which  howls  like  ocean  in  a  hurricane, 

When  it  is  fought  by  winds  grown  quarrelsome. 

The  hellish  tempest,  which  will  never  wane, 
Impels  the  spirits  with  its  violence; 
Whirling  and  buffeting,  it  makes  their  pain. 

When  they  approach  the  broken  eminence, 
There  are  the  shrieks,  the  plaint,  the  lamentation  ; 
There  they  blaspheme  at  God's  omnipotence. 

I  learned  that  into  such  a  castigation 
The  evil  users  of  the  flesh  are  cast, 
Who  reason  subjugate  to  inclination. 

[  72] 


And  as  their  wings  do  bear  the  starlings  past, 
In  the  cold  season,  in  a  great  dense  pack, 
So  bears  the  spirits  maledight  that  blast. 

It  bears  them  up  and  down,  and  out  and  back; 
There  is  no  hope  to  comfort  them  for  aye, 
Not  of  repose,  but  even  of  lesser  wrack. 

And  as  the  cranes  go  chanting  forth  their  lay, 
Forming  themselves  in  air  in  a  long  trail, 
So  I  beheld  those  spirits,  on  that  fray 

Of  winds  borne  up,  approach  with  sounds  of  wail ; 
Whereat  I  questioned :   "  Master,  who  are  these 
Folk  whom  the  murky  air  doth  so  assail  ?" 

"  The  first  of  those  about  whose  histories 

Thou  longest  to  know,"  he  answered  thereupon, 

"The  empress  was  of  many  languages. 

"  With  vice  of  luxury  she  was  so  undone, 

Illicit  she  made  licit  by  decree, 

To  take  the  blame  in  which  she  had  been  drawn. 

"  She  is  Semiramis,  and  we  read  that  she 
Succeeded  Nimus  and  had  been  his  spouse; 
She  used  to  have  the  Soldan's  empery. 

[  73  ] 


"The  next  is  she  who  broke  for  love  her  vows 
Unto  Sichaeus'  dust  and  took  her  life ; 
Then  Cleopatra  the  luxurious. 

"  See  Helena,  for  whom  an  age  so  rife 

With  wrongs  revolved ;  and  see  Achilles  grand, 

Who  with  his  love  at  last  fell  into  strife ; 

"  See  Paris,  Tristan  "  ;  and  with  pointing  hand 

He  showed  and  named  a  thousand  shades  and  more, 

Whom  love  had  out  of  our  existence  banned. 

When  I  had  listened  to  my  counsellor 
Naming  so  many  an  olden  dame  and  knight, 
I  was  bewildered  with  the  grief  I  bore. 

And  I  began  :  "  Poet,  would  that  I  might 
Speak  with  that  couple  who  together  fly, 
And  seem  upon  the  wind  to  be  so  light/' 

And  he  to  me :  "  Thou  'It  see  when  they  be  by 

Us  closer,  and  to  them  do  thou  then  pray 

By  love  which  leads  them,  and  they  will  draw  nigh." 

Soon  as  to  us  the  tempest  makes  them  sway, 
I  raised  my  voice :  "  O  spirits  wearied, 
Come  speak  with  us,  if  no  one  doth  gainsay." 

[  74] 


As  doves  that  are  by  love  solicited, 

Toward  the  sweet  nest  with  wings  held  still  and  high, 

Come  through  the  air  by  their  volition  sped, 

So  these  withdrew  from  Dido's  company, 
Towards  us  approaching  through  the  air  malign, 
Such  was  the  force  of  my  affectionate  cry. 

"  O  living  creature,  gracious  and  benign, 
Who  through  the  purple  air  goest  visiting 
Us  who  with  blood  made  earth  incarnadine, 

"  Were  friend  of  ours  the  Universal  King, 
To  him  would  we  be  praying  for  thy  peace, 
Since  thou  dost  pity  our  perverse  suffering. 

"  Of  what  to  hear  and  what  to  say  thou  please, 
That  will  we  hear  and  say  to  both  of  you, 
The  while,  as  now,  the  wind  relinquishes. 

"  There  sits  the  city  wherewithin  I  grew 
Upon  the  shore  to  which  descends  the  Po, 
To  be  at  peace  with  all  his  retinue. 

"  Love,  which  in  gentle  hearts  is  soon  aglow, 
Caught  him  with  the  fair  body  of  which  I  be 
Bereft,  and  still  for  me  the  way  works  woe. 

[  75] 


"  Love,  which  from  loving  leaves  no  loved  one  free, 
Caught  me  with  the  so  great  delight  therefrom, 
Not  yet,  thou  seest,  does  it  abandon  me. 

"  Love  led  us  onward  to  a  single  doom  ; 
For  him  who  slew  us  doth  Caina  wait." 
Away  from  them  to  us  did  these  words  come. 

When  I  had  heard  those  spirits  desolate, 
I  bowed  my  head,  and  bowed  I  let  it  be 
Till  the  seer  said:  "  What  dost  thou  meditate? " 

When  I  made  answer  I  began  :  "  Ah,  me  ! 

How  many  tender  thoughts,  how  great  a  yearning 

Led  these  unto  the  pass  of  misery !  " 

And  once  again  I  spake,  and  toward  them  turning, 

Began :  "  Francesca,  this  thy  mortifying 

Moves  me  to  tears  with  pity  and  with  mourning. 

"  But  tell  me :  at  the  time  of  the  sweet  sighing, 
What  way  and  at  what  sign  did  love  dispose 
That  ye  should  know  the  longings  mystifying  ? " 

And  she  to  me :  "  There  are  no  greater  woes 
Than  the  remembrances  of  happy  days 
In  misery ;  and  this  thy  teacher  knows. 

[  76] 


"  But  since  to  learn  about  the  earliest  ways 
Of  this  our  love  thou  hast  a  wish  so  dear, 
I  will  do  even  as  one  who  weeps  and  says. 

"  Upon  a  day  we  read  for  our  good  cheer 
Of  Lancelot,  how  love  held  him  in  thrall ; 
We  were  alone  and  without  any  fear. 

"  That  reading  urged  at  many  an  interval 
Our  eyes  together  and  paled  the  cheeks  of  us ; 
But  it  was  just  one  moment  made  us  fall. 

"When  we  had  read  how  one  so  amorous 
Had  kissed  the  smile  that  he  was  longing  for, 
This  one,  who  always  must  be  by  me  thus, 

Kissed  me  upon  the  mouth,  trembling  all  o'er  ; 
Galeot  the  book,  and  he  't  was  written  by  ! 
Upon  that  day  we  read  in  it  no  more." 

So  sorely  did  the  other  spirit  cry, 

While  the  one  spake,  that  for  the  very  dread 

I  swooned  as  if  I  were  about  to  die, 

And  I  fell  down  even  as  a  man  falls  dead. 


NOTE  TO  "THE  AFTERNOON  OF  A  FAUN" 

WHAT  is  the  sense  of  "  L'Apres-midi  d'un  Faune,"  a 
masterpiece  that  is  almost  popular  —  in  so  far  as  it  is  known 
as  the  poem  by- Mallarme  —  as  a  "  miracle  of  obscurity"? 
The  better  known  music  which  interprets  the  poem  for 
Debussy  and  the  dance  which  interprets  it  for  Nijinsky  are 
independent  works  of  art ;  and  the  critical  interpretations  of 
Gosse  and  Remy  de  Gourmont  are  certainly  either  groping 
or  a  little  superficial.  The  obvious  love-story  which  seems  to 
be  what  they  see  in  "  L'Apres-midi  d'un  Faune  "  is  in  re 
ality  a  philosophic  allegory.  "  L'Apres-midi  d'un  Faune  "  is 
one  of  the  great  dream-fictions,  the  greatest  of  which  is  the 
Divina  Commedia.  It  is  a  dream  within  a  day-dream —  a  sort 
of  solipsistic  drama  in  which  the  dreams  are  the  symbols 
which  the  dreamer  has  invented  for  his  desires,  and  which 
he  strives  by  all  the  human  means  of  logic,  art,  and  action  to 
endow  with  actual  existence. 

The  faun,  the  solitary  dreamer,  is  a  compound  of  sensu 
ality  and  imagination ;  and  he  is  so  divided  by  his  double 
nature  that,  both  in  the  long  soliloquy  which  he  dramatises 
by  addressing  himself  and  replying  to  himself  and  in  the  pa 
thetic  fallacy  of  the  act  with  which  the  drama  culminates,  he 
mistakes  himself  for  two.  And  the  doubleness  which  he  finds 
in  himself  he  finds  in  that  compound  of  the  actual  and  the 
illusory  which  is  his  world.  It  is  not  the  poem,  however 

[  78] 


difficult  it  may  be,  which  is  obscure.  The  poem  is  a  clear 
picture,  always  coherent  and  precise,  of  a  mind  humanly 
obscure  to  itself  in  the  presence  of  the  natural  confusion. 
The  remarkable  duplicity  with  which  almost  every  word  in 
the  poem  is  made  to  express  a  double  meaning  is  an  index 
to  the  ingenuity  of  such  a  mind  in  its  attempt  to  reconcile 
the  inherent  contradictions. 

When  in  the  first  words  of  the  poem  the  faun  exclaims :  — 

"  Those  nymphs,  I  would  perpetuate  them," 

he  is  half  awakened  —  as  I  think  —  from  a  dream  which  he 
is  still  mistaking  for  the  reality,  so  undisturbing  is  the  tran 
sition  from  the  brilliant  dream  itself  of  rosy  nudities  to  the 
sun  and  roses  of  his  Sicilian  solitude.  In  a  moment,  how 
ever,  as  the  nymphs  who  have  already  excited  his  passion 
seem  to  be  melting  away,  his  waking  certainly  is  troubled 
by  a  doubt.  Were  they  real  or  a  dream  or  a  waking  halluci 
nation  due  to  physical  desire?  They  were  not  a  dream  — 
as  he  argues,  nai've  in  his  error  —  since  he  imagines  now  that 
he  had  simply  mistaken  for  his  victims  the  flesh-colored 
roses  in  the  wood.  And  they  were  not  an  hypnagogic  hal 
lucination  —  as  he  naively  continues  to  argue  —  for  the 
simple  reason  that  as  he  plays  upon  his  flute  he  is  com 
pletely  engrossed  in  the  pure  inspiration  of  his  music. 

Baffled  in  his  attempt  to  understand  the  true  nature  of 
the  nymphs  who  have  now  disappeared,  the  faun,  with  a 
sort  of  hedonistic  scepticism,  resigns  himself  to  his  memo 
ries  of  the  wonderful  experience  as  the  only  truth  available. 

[79] 


Invoking  to  his  aid  the  quiet  swamp  where  grow  the  rushes 
from  which  he  makes  his  pipes,  he  remembers  —  his  memo 
ries  are  recorded  throughout  the  poem  in  the  italicised  pas 
sages  —  how,  as  he  was  tuning  up,  he  startled  into  flight 
a  group  of  nymphs  whom  he  at  first  mistook  for  swans ; 
how  he  spied  on  them  as  they  bathed  in  the  stream ;  and 
how,  as  he  followed  them  again,  he  came  upon  two  who 
were  clasped  together  in  amorous  sleep  ;  how  he  carried 
them  off  into  a  thicket  of  roses ;  how  he  delighted  in  their 
struggles ;  and  how,  just  as  he  was  kissing  one  and  holding 
the  other  by  a  finger  which  was  not,  perhaps,  so  simple  as 
he  says,  they  finally  escaped,  leaving  him  still  unsatisfied. 

This  record  of  his  memories  the  faun  interrupts  from 
time  to  time  by  a  running  commentary  in  which  he  deter 
mines  that  the  only  trace  of  the  vanished  nymphs  —  since 
they  have  left  no  trace  in  the  environment  —  is  the  invisible 
wound  in  his  breast.  The  pain  which  they  have  left  behind 
he  immediately  attempts  to  assuage  by  diverting  it  into 
music.  The  diversion,  however,  is  in  the  end  unsatisfying ; 
and  throwing  away  his  useless  instrument,  he  attempts  by 
poetising  to  inflate  the  remembered  past  into  a  sort  of  falla 
cious  present,  which  is  indeed  the  essence  of  the  descriptive 
arts.  But  in  spite  of  all  ingenious  use  of  memory  and  imagi 
nation  the  departure  of  the  nymphs  leaves  him  still  unsatis 
fied  ;  nothing  imaginative  can  satisfactorily  substitute  the 
reality ;  and  under  the  domination  of  his  growing  passion, 
he  attempts  to  realize  his  dream  by  action.  Deceived  by 
the  remarkable  vagary  about  Etna  into  a  belief  that  he  has 

[80] 


actual  possession  of  Venus,  he  is  betrayed  into  an  act  which 
brings  with  it  the  final  disillusion.  From  the  tragic  self- 
defeat  of  that  high  dream  of  perpetuating  nymphs  there  is 
now  no  refuge  but  sleep  —  a  drunken  sleep  in  which  he  may 
lose  himself  completely. 

When  the  faun,  as  he  accordingly  falls  asleep,  exclaims  at 
the  end  of  the  poem:  — 

"  Couple,  adieu  ; 
I  go  to  see  the  shadow  into  which  ye  grew/'  — 

it  is  noon,  and  the  attempt  which  he  has  made  throughout 
the  morning  to  perpetuate  the  dream  of  the  preceding  night 
is  finally  abandoned.  "  The  Afternoon  of  a  Faun  "  is  the 
afternoon  of  sleep  which  follows  —  the  afternoon  which 
is  never  mentioned  in  the  text  and  which  is  only  for  a 
moment  foreshadowed  as  "  the  oblivion  of  the  blasphemy." 
It  is  as  if  the  poem  began  as  it  is  ending.  The  words  ad 
vance  as  far  as  the  threshold  of  unconsciousness.  "  The  rest 
is  silence" — a  silence  in  which  the  dreamer  and  the  dream, 
after  the  essential  separation,  are  reconciled  at  last  in  a 
common  extinction. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .   A 


Thisb. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

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Tel.  No.  642-3405 

Renewals  may  be  made  4  days  priod  to  date  due. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

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